We were just going to offer our Vicar, but he has no inscription on him.
PLATITUDES: THE NEW GAME.
It is based on "Bromides" and any one can play it. The least educated has a chance of winning and an Oxford degree is no bar to success—quite the reverse, in fact; indeed I have known dons....
This is how it is played. Two people are seated in easy-chairs, for it has been found that you cannot be too comfortable for this game; any discomfort is apt to excite the mind, to disturb the grey matter, to interfere with that complete repose which is so essential a feature of the contest. These two are the players. They indulge in small talk and the smaller talker wins. The object of each player is to make such inanely conventional remarks that his opponent is reduced to silence. For example you are sitting next to a bishop, and it falls to you to start the conversation. Of course you don't say anything like "How sad about this Kikuyu business." No, you open like this. "Are you fond of dancing?" you say. The bishop will reply coldly, "It is many years since I danced." You sigh and murmur, "Ah! the dear old days!" I cannot imagine what his lordship will say next.
Of course the conversation in Platitudes must be connected and coherent. There is no use repeating "Wollah wollah, gollah gollah, Asquith must go, We want eight," or things of that sort. And you must not make mere blank statements like "The number of cigars annually imported into the U.S.A. is 26,714,811," unless they can be introduced deftly into the conversation.
You must imagine yourself paying a call in a London drawing-room, and you must say nothing that would not be possible and indeed suitable in that milieu. To attempt to arouse any interest or show any intelligence is wrong, but then neither must you betray any sign of actual imbecility. Anything that approaches gibbering cannot be too strongly condemned.
The players speak in turn and quotations are not allowed (at least not from living writers). The question as to whose talk is the smaller of the two is so much a matter of taste that the game can only be decided by an umpire or by the votes of the spectators. But there is seldom much doubt. It is not uncommon for one of the players to break down and become almost hysterical, and few can hold out long against one of the champions. Some people allow facial expression and general demeanour to count, but this I do not recommend. It gives some an unfair advantage, and I have known it lead to unpleasantness.
Perhaps a short sample will give a better idea of the game than any description. I take one from a little tournament in which I competed a few days ago. I was highly commended, but it was thought I displayed a little too much intelligence. This is one of the pleasing features of Platitudes; when one loses, things like that are somehow said, as they are never said, for instance, at Bridge. From this specimen the beginner will learn the right style and method. Only by study of the best models and by constant practice can he attain anything like proficiency.
He. What a world we live in, do we not? (This is a very common opening.)